IMPROVING EIA REPORT QUALITY
THE IMPORTANCE OF AN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY IN EIA REPORTING
Last month I hosted a discussion webinar on What’s Wrong with EIA Reporting in South Africa ? Thank you to all those who participated in the webinar and shared your experiences and insight on this important issue. More such webinars are planned for the future, where we can map out a strategy to improve the quality of EIA reporting in South Africa.
An Executive Summary of an EIA Report (or a Basic Assessment or Scoping Report) is reflective of the overall quality of the report. But most importantly, it serves to summarise the main findings of the impact assessment and provides an important snapshot of the impact assessment to decision-makers such as the competent authority.
At a glance, the Executive Summary to an EIA Report may seem like an irrelevant "nice-to-have" - but it is one of the most critical components of an EIA Report.
There is no legal obligation under South African environmental legislation to include an Executive Summary in an EIA Report. Yet, it is that part of the report which is relied on, and perhaps the only section in the report which is read, by decision-makers.
An Executive Summary must give a concise description of the main findings of the Impact Assessment and the recommendations. It is however, not a substitute for a poorly written EIA Report, or a poorly executed EIA process.
My experience with EIA reports over the decades has shown that, generally, the Executive Summary is one of the most poorly written or ignored components of an EIA Report.
This means that the outcomes of the EIA are not being communicated efficiently and concisely. Which means that a significant number of environmental authorisations are being granted without an understanding of the findings of the EIA process. Which explains why sometimes, environmental authorisations contain irrelevant or impractical conditions.
Bearing the above challenges in mind, and in an attempt to improve EIA report quality, I will be hosting a new training course entitled WRITING AN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY IN EIA.
The course is aimed at practising Environmental Assessment Practitioners (EAPs) including candidate EAPs who will be trained on how to write concise and professional Executive Summaries for EIA Reports.
The course kicks off on the 9th of May 2025 at 09h00 on MS Teams. For further details and to register, please visit www.samie.co.za
